MINDEN, NEV. — He was a man who loved airplanes. Loved the howl of perfect tune on take-off, the spotless order of a well-kept hangar.

How curious it was that such a man was afraid to fly in the very machines he repaired.

And when the sky swallowed him up that day in August, where did he go?

"People don't just get plucked off the face of the earth for no reason."

There is a wide flat valley nestled between the Pinenut Mountains off in the distance over there and the majestic rise of the Sierra Nevada. If you drove up through that pass, you'd be gazing on Lake Tahoe.

But down here in the valley is a small desert town called Minden, Nev.

Just off the highway north of town is the Minden-Tahoe Airport and the spotless hanger where Rob Bodden had built a business and made a reputation as one of the finest aircraft mechanics in the whole valley.

And so, as often happens, love that was blind developed the eyes to see, and failed to enjoy the view.

Katie Rasor: I think a lot of the fights were about us kids

Keith Morrison: It was hard for him.

Katie Rasor: Right. Yeah. And so, he was used to having his house the way he had it. And then, we all know how kids are.

Katie was one of those four kids. She was inclined to see the conflict and the tension as Rob's problem.

Katie Rasor: He broke microwaves. And broke the kitchen table. And you know, when they would get in fights, he would get really violent and punch holes in the walls. He would overwhelm her with flowers and gifts and "I love you"'s and cards and then it would be like walking in on eggshells.

Keith Morrison: Typical abusive relationship?

Katie Rasor: Right.

Perhaps it's not surprising that Rob's brother, Tim, didn't see it quite that way.

Tim Bodden: He had a hot temper. But as far as harming anybody, never. Never-

But as winter gave way to spring, their marriage seemed to bud anew as well.

They planned an anniversary trip.

Ah, but the flush of renewed affection was apparently a mirage. On the morning of the Aug. 16, all best intentions dissolved in bitterness. They fought at the hangar. A bad one this time. By the time it was done, all expectations of fresh beginnings, of a second honeymoon down the coast, had vanished. And so did Rob.

There would be stories about a rushed departure on a sleek Golden Eagle, about the hush-hush work he had left to do with a man named Ramos. But for now, he was simply and mysteriously gone.

Keith Morrison: So he'd left his life just like that? Suddenly disappeared from his own life?

Ron Elges: And that's what it appeared, that someone had just plucked him out and he was gone.

His wife, Karen, told friends she assumed he'd be back. Of course he would. A few days. A month, maybe.

But no one told his sister, Barbara. And 10 days later, when she found out he was gone, her's was a different reaction altogether.

Barbara Bodden: The alarms did go off. It was like, "Something's wrong. This isnt right."

It was like any other morning in late August here in the desert below Lake Tahoe.

The heat outside swelling toward noon.

But it wasn't like any other day, ever, for Barbara Bodden. She'd been trying to reach her brother Rob, and discovered he was missing.

Barbara Bodden: I was panicked. I was panicked. Because he doesn't disappear. He doesn't leave.

So her next call was to the police.

Dispatcher: Douglas County 911. Address of your emergency?

Barbara Bodden: I am on my way to my brother's house in Johnson Lane. Ah, he has been missing for 9 days, and we need a sheriff to come out there for us please.

An over-reaction, surely.

After all, Rob's wife, Karen, didn't seem to be concerned at all, when Barbara roared up at the front door.

Barbara Bodden: I said, "Where is he?" and, "Oh, he's with some guy named Ramos " I'm like, "Who the hell is Ramos?" Her story was, "This guy Ramos was gonna pay Rob $10,000 under the table to work for him for a month on his airplanes."

Karen insisted she wasn't worried, she knew why Rob had gotten into that plane. Rob was repairing airplanes for drug runners. So she did not want to get the police involved.

Barbara Bodden: I said I don't care what she wants. Even if he's with Ramos, help us find Ramos. You know, maybe the plane crashed.

It was the next morning when investigator Ron Elges showed up for work at the Douglas County Sheriff's Office.

Ron Elges: The deputy came in with his report in his hand. And he said "Who wants a murder?" (laughter) I was like-

Ron Elges: Yeah. I said, "OK." He said it like half-jokingly, probably, but also in his heart, obvious, that's what he probably believed.

Not exactly grounds for suspicion.

So investigator Elges phoned the wife, Karen, invited her down to the station to answer a few questions to help find her spouse. And she, quite willingly, complied.

Elges: ...so I am going to ask you a bunch of questions...

Elges started the video machine and began poking around, as investigators do, looking for some kind of lead, and often it's the marriage that pops out a clue or two for the cop to follow.

Karen Bodden: I mean, I love the man with all my heart...

So that's where he began.

Karen Bodden: He is the most gentle, nice person that can be and then it's like a light switch and he is like the most violent, hole-in-the-wall, smash-furniture extreme. And it could be over something stupid, you know. I mean literally stupid. Toilet seat left up.

Which confirmed that they had a rocky marriage, but nothing out of the ordinary.

And what, the investigator wondered, did Karen know about this guy named "Ramos," who'd taken Rob with him in his twin engine Golden Eagle?

Karen Bodden: ...a little over a month ago this guy came to his hangar, and he offered him a job...

Karen Bodden: His name is Ramos ... he knows the guy's planes -- these planes are used for drug running.

Investigator: Do you know what the airplane looks like, the 421 Golden Eagle?

Karen Bodden: It's white. It has red pin-striping on it.

But now there was a little more to the story.

The morning after Rob flew away with Ramos, said Karen, he returned home briefly, grabbed some clothes, and left again and headed back to the airport.

Investigator: How did he leave? Was there another car outside?

Karen Bodden: His truck. He left in his truck.

She also handed investigator Elges a crumpled piece of paper. It was a note that she says was posted on Rob's hangar door, at his business, the day he flew away.

Karen Bodden: This was on his door when I came...

Investigator: Right here it says will be gone for the day.

Karen Bodden: Rob must have done that.

Ron Elges: She said that Rob had put the note on the door where it was typewritten about being gone for the day. And that she had added stuff to help justify to everybody where he was so that no one -- if someone asked questions about where he was, they would know that he was with Ramos.

Karen Bodden: I wrote that on there because he only left with, ya know, like three pairs of pants. And it was just an assumption on my part that, you know, he grabbed three sets of clothes, that he would be gone, you know, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday at the latest.

Investigator: Do you have any other ideas of what could have happened?

Karen Bodden: Well, that's just it. I mean, I mean, it's all speculation. He could have come back in another plane. Who the hell knows.

Another plane? Did Ramos have other planes?

Investigator: What do you think is happening? What is your heart telling you is going on?

Karen Bodden: My heart is telling me that Rob has taken this job with these people to make the fast buck, and I believe he is going to be home anytime now. I really do.

Investigator: You don't think anything has happened to him?

Karen Bodden: No, I do not.

So, according to Karen, he'd left just like that. Suddenly disappeared from his own life without telling a soul, to work for drug smugglers.

Really?

Investigator Elges went out to the airport now to see if he could back up Karen's story.

Keith Morrison: Did anybody see a plane take off that morning or land?

Ron Elges: nobody saw any plane take off, a 421, that day or that morning.

Keith Morrison: Curious.

Ron Elges: It starts testing the common sense part of your brain.

A little checking with the FAA revealed no flight plans filed for a Cessna 421 Golden Eagle at the Minden Tahoe Airport on Aug. 26, the day Rob disappeared.

And as for the people who work out here, it's a very tight community.

Ron Elges: They all watched each other's back, and take care of each other, and that's one of the things we found is that when Karen is telling us that Rob just left, this community of people is saying that's not Rob. Rob doesn't do that.

At Rob's hangar, things were pretty much just like a workshop. There was really nothing odd about it.

Rob's tools were neatly organized in plastic containers, nuts and bolts attached on the wall.

To the side, a piece of equipment you might find in a factory, a red hydraulic lift or "cherry picker." Here in Rob's hangar, it was used to hoist aircraft engines.

The light on Rob's phone was blinking. Messages were piling up.

Ron Elges: They weren't picked up. They weren't received. So we started listening to phone messages. Who's calling him?

One person turned out to be a friend named Kelly Rosser. He'd called quite a few times.

Kelly Rosser: And I started feeling uncomfortable about it because no matter where he was, he was always easy to get a hold of. He had a cell phone with him all the time.

So Kelly went over to Rob's hangar.

Kelly Rosser: There was, like, a note that said something as short as, you know, "Back on Friday," but I still thought, oh cool, you know, that explains he is somewhere with someone doing something and everything's cool.

Kelly had a key. He let himself in.

He didn't like what he saw.

Kelly Rosser: There was an airplane that he had been working on. And there were tools scattered all around underneath the airplane. And that was really, really odd. Because he never ever left anything. I mean, if we went to lunch, we put all the tools away. And so the fact that these tools were laying on the floor was alarming for me.

A few days later, Kelly returned.

Kelly Rosser: And I saw the second note, which said that he was gone with Ramos. Which I had never heard of anybody named Ramos.

Nor had anyone at the Minden Tahoe Airport.

Ron Elges: Who's not telling me the truth? And who's not providing the information that should be there? Because people don't just get plucked off the face of the earth for no reason. There has to be a reason. So we started digging more into Karen's story.

And he decided to follow up on a request he'd already made here, days earlier, during that taped interview.

Investigator: Karen, do you have any problems if we came in and searched the house looking for information that might lead us to...

And there in the dishwasher were the black-handled steak knives, the very same ones he'd seen on the counter weeks earlier. And what do you know? They matched the knife that had been found with the body in desert.

But that wasn't all he found.

Sitting in plain view were two duplicate type-written letters signed by Rob Bodden. They were letters that the investigator insisted were not there when he first searched the house.

Keith Morrison: What did they say?

Ron Elges: They were addressed to the Douglas County Detectives. Us.

Keith Morrison: You?

Ron Elges: There was a letter from Rob saying that he'd left, you know? He found a better life for himself. To go ahead and take his wallet, and she could have all his property.

To investigator Elges, it was transparent evidence, an attempt to cover up a murder.

Karen was charged.

With murder? Well, no. With grand theft. Authorities determined that Karen had stolen more than $20,000 from her now-dead husband.

Besides, a murder charge had to wait for a little while.

Ron Elges: We wanted to get the autopsies done. We wanted to gather more information.

And that's when the puzzle grew very curious indeed. Sure enough, given what investigator Elges found, murder was the charge. But could it stick?

Keith Morrison: You're looking forward to this trial?

Barbara Bodden: Yeah.

Keith Morrison: Why?

Barbara Bodden: For the answers.

Mark Jackson: Everything about her was greed. It all came down to greed.

The murder trial of Karen Bodden began in January, with Douglas County prosecutor Mark Jackson intending to show the jury that Karen brutally murdered her husband in his airplane hangar, and dumped his body in the desert.

Opening Statement

Jackson: After she shot and killed her husband she drove his dead body to the desert area believing that she had committed the perfect murder.

Her motive? In two words: Greed and liberty.

Opening Statement

Jackson: Greed. You will learn that the defendant was stealing money and that she continued to steal money after his murder. And liberty. If the authorities were made aware of those actions because she was on probation she could go to prison.

The prosecutor said the notes on the hangar door indicating when Rob would return was just Karen's way of extending the cover up.

Jackson: And that's what she came up with. Is, "I'll just attach this note here. Then no one will have any worries at all." At least for the next day or two.

All very well, she may indeed have had that in mind, but just physically, how could this woman have done what she supposedly did to this man?

He had to weigh more than 250 pounds.

How did she move that dead weight out of the hanger, and into the desert, without leaving so much as a trace of evidence behind?

Here is how.

It was, said the prosecutor, both ingenious and devious. To move that large corpse, he said, to do it with her own limited strength, do it without leaving a drag trail of blood -- or other inconvenient evidence -- she fired up that cherry picker. The one she'd watched Rob use to lift and move airplane engines. And she found a tie-down strap with a handy cinch, and went about her work like a pro.

Mark Jackson: It was our theory that that strap was put around his waist to attach to the hook portion of this cherry picker that lifts airplane engines. And effortlessly, just by touching a little knob on that cherry picker, a child could lift that body and then wheel it over to the pickup truck and drop the body.

And then? Karen eased the truck out of the hangar, said the prosecutor, drove it 11 miles east to a remote area of desert, parked on a slope, and pushed his dead body off the tailgate.

Mark Jackson: As she was pulling the body out of the bed of the pickup truck, the knife came out with the body. And we believe that the knife was used to cut the strap.

The weekend after Rob's murder, Karen and her two daughters went camping at Lake Tahoe.

Mark Jackson: It has a very large lake. One of the deepest lakes. And she went on one of those boats.

Keith Morrison: Right after the killing?

Mark Jackson: Right after the killing.

Jackson: Are you aware that Lake Tahoe is a very deep lake

Caroline: Yes.

Mark Jackson: We put the evidence on to establish that she had an opportunity to get rid of the gun.

It was all very compelling, but where was the evidence? No gun, no fingerprints, no DNA. No witnesses. Nothing that said with any certainty Karen Bodden killed her husband or even knew how it happened.

And then, there was one last witness, someone the prosecutor initially didn't think existed.

Jim Wilson: Karen Bodden did not kill her husband, she did not shoot him. She did not have any involvement in his murder and she doesn't know who did it.

Defense Attorney Jim Wilson belittled the prosecution's theory that Karen put two bullets in her husband's head to prevent him from sending her to prison. It was a theory -- a fancy theory --but nothing more, he said.

Opening statement

Wilson: There is no evidence Rob was going to turn her in, people that Rob talked to said Rob said he would not turn her in ... Doesn't make sense.

One by one, the defense unwound the prosecutor's claims and asked the jury: Where's the proof?

Keith Morrison: The prosecution's case is largely built on the motive that he said he was gonna turn her in.

Jim Wilson: And if they'd have presented some evidence on that, that would have been a good theory. He loved her. He did not want to cause her trouble.

The defense called Rob's own accountant, who testified earlier, for the prosecution, that Karen had been using Rob's credit card and forging checks, and that Rob knew it.

Wilson: Rob told you on multiple occasions that he wouldn't turn Karen in?

Accountant: At least twice that I recall.

So much for the motive that she needed to kill him to keep herself out of prison..

Jim Wilson: This was an execution. I have not learned anything during my representation that would make me think that she was capable of doing that.

The jury never heard from Karen Bodden herself, never had the chance to judge the words from her own mouth.

But now, in the same courtroom, no jury present to listen, Karen Bodden has agreed to answer questions -- from Dateline.

Karen Bodden: When you make a bad choice and you keep doing it, it becomes a compulsive habit. I am not happy with myself for doing what I did.

Karen admits she stole from her previous employer, the DMV, and later from her own husband.

Karen Bodden: I did do some financial revenges on him. Yeah.

But for all their squabbles, she says Rob stood by her.

Keith Morrison: How did that work?

Karen Bodden: Because he loved me.

And so why didn't she report her loving husband missing?

Karen Bodden: He took a job. He wanted to make the money that he was offered to see if he could get along with the people there. I expected him to call. Any wife would expect her husband to call.

Thing was, as Karen had said, the job was not exactly on the up and up. There really was a Ramos. Rob was repairing airplanes for drug runners. And so she says she was was selective with what she told investigators.

Mark Jackson: Well, I think it happened that night of the 15th. Rob would work late hours. So I think she went into the hangar that evening of the 15th, murdered him on the 15th. Cleaned up the crime scene.

Keith Morrison: Before sunrise?

Mark Jackson: Correct. And she was there in the morning still cleaning up.

Long after we've all forgotten about the grim demise of an airplane mechanic who was afraid to fly, the question will lie there, for his family, unanswered.

Barbara Bodden: We're still left here going, "Why?" You know, that's one thing I know I'll never get an answer to. I'll never get an answer why.

Dateline wires the home of a volunteer, Jenny, from top to bottom with hidden cameras. Then she called repairmen to her house for a simple problem we created as a test with Jenny's pool. NBC's Chris Hansen reports.